


Camomile Tea

by Accal1a



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Deleted Scenes, Episode: s05e05 A Novel Approach, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4440452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An introspective Stiles after the first fifteen minutes of the episode but before he sees the pack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camomile Tea

**Author's Note:**

> The almost-look Stiles gave himself in the mirror, spoke a thousand words.
> 
> So I attempted to write a thousand words about it...and I just love le angst.

He didn’t have blood on his hands anymore and the water was starting to go cold; but Stiles couldn’t stop scrubbing.

He felt dirty all over. He'd used half a bottle of shower gel and that still hadn't been enough. His mind kept replaying the image of Donovan impaled by the scaffolding. The moment the clattering sounds had stopped; the agonisingly slow turn of his head; and his climb down the scaffolding, only to find there was nothing he could do to help the other man. 

He’d always loved his analytical mind, the way he could remember little details that others missed. He thought that it was what would make him – _what would have made him_ – a good cop. Now though, his analytical mind was a curse. It allowed him to remember every minute of the attack, on and endless loop. It was only when the water turned pink again that he stopped, realising he had scoured a graze on the back of his left hand as he did so.

Stepping out of the shower and wrapping a towel around his waist, he glanced at himself in the mirror; but couldn’t hold his gaze. He didn't know who he was anymore.

Stiles dressed quickly, his mind still racing. He only realised he was shaking when he had trouble with the buttons on his trousers and the zip on his hoodie. He gripped his hands tightly together, telling his body to stop, as if sheer force of will could still the tremors.

Shock, his mind supplied.

He was in shock. What did you do with shock victims? Wasn’t it something about blankets and hot drinks? Tea. He could make tea.

Padding downstairs, he was never more glad that his dad was at work. He didn’t think he had the mental capacity to come up with a lie. His dad had got very adept at knowing just when Stiles was doing so. It seemed to be a direct result of the Sheriff’s knowledge of the supernatural. Where Stiles no longer had to make up lies to cover the frankly bizarre things that happened in Beacon Hills, his lies about other things (though infrequent) were nowhere near up to scratch. Trying to cover up a murder was going to require some thought.

Stiles missed a step on the stairs and nearly fell. He caught himself on the banister, hurting his already painful shoulder. He was going to have to cover up a murder. He was now a criminal who needed to conceal evidence, lie about his whereabouts and cover up a crime. His dad would be so disappointed in him when he found out. He'd already lost his wife and now he would have to deal with the stigma of having a felon for a son. He would be out of a job. Not only had he wrecked his own life, he had ruined his father's too. Somehow that was worse.

The kitchen light was too bright but the room had very little ambient light so it was a necessary evil. He tried to keep his mind off the events of the evening whilst he went about the mundane task of filling up the kettle and finding a mug. His thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone though. 

Whilst the kettle was boiling, he briefly considered getting rid of the jeep. If it hadn’t broken down _again_ , he wouldn’t have been attacked in the first place. That piece of metal, held mostly together by duct tape, was the reason he had been forced to act in the way he had. The stupid machine which he held on to for completely stupid sentimental reasons was good for nothing if it caused this.

The kettle boiled and he started pouring the water into his favourite mug. The slight chip in the rim, the way it was tea stained and no amount of scrubbing would get it out. It was familiar, something he could focus on.

The soothing scent of camomile helped slightly, it reminded him of his mother. He wasn’t sure when he’d graduated from thinking the tea was disgusting to actually liking the taste. He remembered forcing himself to endure the tea after she had died, swallowing it down so he could feel close to her one last time. Eventually he had started to make the tea out of habit and actually enjoyed it. His mother’s memory seemed to live on in the small gesture. 

What his mother would think of his murderous son, he didn’t know. She wouldn't have wanted him to grow up like this, someone who his own father would be ashamed to be related to. That, more than anything else, caused the tears to fall; until he was sobbing uncontrollably, his hands flat on the counter top and tears splashing in his tea.

Eventually he pulled himself together enough to rescue the kettle from where he had precariously placed it, half on and half off it’s stand. It was a miracle he hadn’t spilt boiling water all over himself. Tea forgotten, he walked back up to his room. He felt boneless, weak and disorientated; disassociated from the world around him.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and turned it off. The pack couldn’t see him like this and he didn’t want to see them. He couldn’t see the look of disgust on Scott’s face; the blunt way Malia would say he had had no choice; the thinly veiled empathy Lydia would show. He didn’t want to be told it was kill or be killed, logically he knew that. 

Stiles didn’t want to die, pre-emptive suicide to try to save people not withstanding; but he also couldn’t reconcile what he had done. There must have been another choice, must have been something he could have done differently.

He knew that there was no way of knowing that the scaffolding would impale Donovan, knew that had just been dumb luck; but surely in the back of his mind he also knew that the fall might have killed him. When he was reaching for that pin, hoping to knock Donovan away from him, surely part of him had known that in all likelihood this was only going to end one way.

He was pretty sure that the mocking laughter in the back of his head was just his mind playing tricks on him. He couldn’t _still_ be possessed by the Nogitsune could he? Was the fox spirit just playing an incredibly long game? If he wasn’t, was there some residue? Did he kill Donovan because he was evil now?

Was there any redemption for someone like him, or was he now counted among the monsters which his pack needed to terminally put down? He’d read enough comics in his time to know the friend turned enemy trope was a good one, one that never failed to cause the most amount of anguish to all those involved. 

If his life had now boiled down to a series of coloured cells, he’d end it himself. He was no-one’s arch enemy, no-one’s villain. 

He was just Stiles; and damnit he was supposed to be the most human of them all.


End file.
